Harlan T. Beverly writes from Austin, Texas about Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Business for Engineers and Other Logical Thinkers.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Arrogance of Mankind

First, we think we can own each other. Then, we think we own the planet. Next, we think we know how the universe was created. And finally, the coup-de-grace, we think we know how mankind was created. Seriously, are we that arrogant? Ironically, Conservatives & Bible altruists are often the worst kind of arrogant. They think they know what God means! (seriously?) Yep.

The most liberal magazine I read is Scientific American. WOW, do they hate creationism. They also believe very strongly in global warming, anti-gun law, and science in general. That's all fine and good, but what frustrates me is their arrogance. They deny the possibility that they don't know the answer. They treat hypothesis and thesis as fact. They present data as though it proves any point. This magazine is the perfect example of "scientific arrogance"... prove what you can prove, not what you believe.

Worse than the liberals are the conservatives. It stupefies me that conservatives actually think they know what God means when he says 7 days. They discount certain scientific facts for "their interpretation" of what they've read in the Bible. The idea that God could wield his power in such a way as to make a day 1Trillion years is somehow incomprehensible? That God's creation of mankind might have been done "through" animals (which also came from dust) unfounded? Even if you take every word of the Bible as fact, there is so much left UNSAID BY GOD and so much BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING that there is PLENTY of room for science.

So, what does this have to do with business? Nothing and Everything.

When thinking about "context" of the world in which we live, we have to realize that people are "POLARIZED". Most people flock to Creationism or un-yield in their belief of Evolution-ism. It is rare for the person to accept both into their belief system.

In business, make products that "Polarize"... and don't be afraid of it. Realize that you can't please everybody (most people aren't wired that way!).

You'll have a "hit" when you please one group, and make the other group hate you.

What I have always found most interesting about the science vs creationism debate is that if you drop the arrogance and admit how much "We don't know" it becomes relatively simple for both sides to be correct without any real need for the discussion to even turn into a debate.

I am a strong believer in both science and the bible and I'm at a point now where I do not believe there are any real conflicts between the two. Though it might take an entire book to explain in any real depth so I'll stop there until someone pays me to write it =P

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About Me

In 2005, Harlan founded and was CEO of Bigfoot Networks, Inc., a gaming
hardware company, which was acquired by Qualcomm in 2011. After Bigfoot,
Harlan founded and was CEO of Karmaback, Inc., a very successful Social
Networking SaaS company, which was acquired in 2013. Harlan then worked for Creeris Ventures as a virtual VP of Marketing for
their 9 portfolio companies. Harlan is currently CEO of Key Ingredient, a high-tech Cloud technology company, focused on delivering Food Recipes via the Cloud. Harlan also recently completed his PhD in
Business and regularly lectures at U.T. Austin on Business, and is
passionate about the convergence of hard science with Business.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, Harlan worked at Intel and was
responsible for architecture and development of corporate server
networking products, including the world's first 10-Gigabit Ethernet
adapter. He later joined start-up Britestream Networks and helped
develop a 100% CPU off-load SSL security solution. Harlan has over 12
patents from his engineering career, has been published in dozens of
books and articles.

In his 12 years leading companies and teams, Harlan has successfully
launched 5 hardware and 15 software products including the Killer NIC,
2007 Network Product of the Year (CPU Magazine). Harlan has also raised
over $20MM in venture financing in the challenging intersection of
entertainment and technology.